


Penance

by PusillanimousBitch1138



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Guilt, Nightmares, PTSD, Self-Harm, Survivor Guilt, hella angst, just an angsty shitstorm of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PusillanimousBitch1138/pseuds/PusillanimousBitch1138
Summary: Anna has terrible nightmares that keep her up, and Fenris is there to help. (CW: PTSD and injuries.)





	Penance

Fenris wakes alone. The utter silence outside the window with the stark darkness of night tells him that it’s not yet dawn, and the weariness in his bones tell him it is most likely not past 3 or 4 in the morning. The empty space beside him is cold, the blanket and sheets untouched. Concern flashes across his face and his ears twitch back briefly. It wasn’t some grand secret that Anna Malina Hawke had trouble sleeping, but she usually at least made the effort to come to bed. She claims that being near him makes it better.

The stone is sharply cold against his feet as he pulls himself out of bed. The fire in the hearth is now just embers on the verge of going out. As he passes, he sets a piece of wood within them and hopes it’s enough. The house is mostly silent as he makes his way down the stairs in search of her. There is only the faintest sound of Bodahn’s snoring from his shared room with Sandal and the hound. He found her, finally, in the basement. In truth it might not have occurred to him to look there if not for the repetitive thudding that he could just faintly make out. “Hawke?” Fenris called out to her as he began to descend the stair, wishing he’d had the forethought to have lit a candle. There was light, faint but there at the end of the stairs. As he went lower into the dark, the thudding got louder until he approached what used to be the vault. He sighed to himself. Of course she would be here.

He knocked on the door, more out of respect than anything, and when she unsurprisingly did not answer or falter in her ministrations he gently nudged it open. She was in the corner, two torches burning on either side of the room, and even in the dim light he could see the sweat rolling off her body. She stood barefoot, in only a pair of pants and her smallclothes, her long hair tied up in a messy braid. She was bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet, her fists pumping endlessly into a thrice-bagged sack of flour she’d strung up from a rafter. For a mage, she was remarkably strong.

Fenris cleared his throat and approached slowly. “Hawke, are you coming to bed?” She didn’t answer him, didn’t even glance in his direction. Concern began to flutter in his stomach, urging him closer. “Hawke?”

He saw it then. Her hands were wet, soaked through her bindings, but it was not sweat. It was dark and rolled down her arms, falling from her elbows to the floor or onto herself. He reached forward and caught her arm in his. “Hawke!”

She froze at his touch and stared at his hand upon her wrist with wide eyes before she was brought back. She looked up at him, and even in the dim light he could plainly see the dark bags underneath her crystal blue eyes. Her voice was ragged when she whispered his name, a question, a refusal to accept the here and now.

He sighed and loosened his grip on her slightly, instead taking her hands gently into his. “You’re bleeding.” She watched as he began to unbind her hands, not even so much as gritting her teeth as he pulled the sopping material away. She’d skinned almost her entire fingers, her knuckles almost worn down to the bone. With a sigh, he dragged her upstairs to the kitchen and sat her down, kneeling in front of her. This wasn’t the first time he’d found her pushing herself too hard, but it had never been quite this bad before. The first time had been less than a week since they’d found Leandra, taken by that…that…Fenris didn’t actually have a word adequate enough to describe the necromancer who’d taken her. Before Leandra, it had been bad enough. The mother used to whisper her concerns to him, had mentioned at least once a week how little sleep Anna was able to get. But since Leandra? It was a Maker-given miracle that the poor woman hadn’t taken seriously ill. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Hawke. Eventually you’re going to have to sleep.”

She looked down at him, watching as he cleaned her wounds, barely feeling anything of what he was doing. The worry in his face was all too evident, and if she could feel anything right then, she’d feel guilt. But if he only _knew,_ maybe he’d understand. Maybe he’d not begrudge her her vices.

He was speaking, but she couldn’t focus on his words. His deep timbering voice washed over her like the warm ocean washes against the sand, and she wanted to badly to sleep, to be held in his arms as the sweet darkness of oblivion took her.

But it’s not oblivion she sees.

It’s her father. The man for whom she got her middle name, her spitting image—black unkempt hair, frighteningly blue eyes, a nose slightly too large, thick lips. He smiles at her as she greets him after a long day working on their farm. He smells of soil and grass and elfroot, and his shaggy beard tickles her cheek as he hugs her, the deepness of his booming voice echoing in the small kitchen around them, warming her heart. But as quickly as he’s come, he’s gone, washed away in a sea of darkspawn, their hands reaching for one another’s, but she can’t run fast enough, can’t keep up, can’t cast fast enough to clear a path. And then he’s gone.

Then Bethany. Endlessly, Anna turns mid-fight to see it happen again. The ogre snatches her like she weighs nothing, and Anna is running but the ground around her turns to quicksand. Bethany is thrown to the ground with a sickening thud, again and again and again, and every time it is all Anna can do just to scream.

Carver. Endlessly she must do it, must push the dagger into his flesh with a sickening schlick, no matter how hard she fights it. It’s as if she’s trapped in her own mind, forced to watch again and again as her body disobeys her, makes her watch the light fade from his eyes though she longs only to turn away.

And…Leandra. Maker. Leandra is the worst. Her face haunts Anna every dream. Gaunt, pale, ragged. Sometimes weeping, sometimes screaming, sometimes blaming Anna for it all. She should’ve been there. She should’ve been fighting at her father’s side, been the one guarding her mother instead of Bethany, been the one to take the Darkspawn’s blade, been there in time to save Leandra. She has failed her family, as a daughter, a sister, a woman. She should’ve done more for them, and for her failures she must bear this knowledge as penance.

Every night, again and again, the same dreams, never ending.

It’s easier with Fenris. At least when she wakes sobbing in the middle of the night, his arms are strong and warm around her, a reminder that she is at least safe. But then the reality that it did all in fact happen crashes back down on her, and she can’t breathe. She lies there, gasping for air that will not come. Most nights, he will awaken and attempt to comfort her, but it’s not enough. He is, at best, a small piece of driftwood amidst a violent typhoon.

“Anna?”

She focuses back on him. Her hands are now wrapped in clean bandages, and she can smell an elfroot balm. His eyes are wide, brows furrowed in concern as he holds her wrists gently, rubbing gentle circles into her skin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

A flash of something crossed his face, perhaps pity, maybe heartbreak? He said nothing else, only pushed himself up, taking her into his arms. She is limp against him for a time, letting him rock her gently, the warmth from his body seeping into hers in a way that’s almost therapeutic.

The tears come, eventually, as they always do, and as he always does, Fenris waits patiently for them to subside, doing his small part to help her bear the weight of her penance in loving silence.


End file.
